Unlikely Allies in Fight for Hemp

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Published: June 22, 1997

MODENA, N.Y., June 20—
Fred A. Maslack made the long drive down from southern Vermont in the oldest car with Vermont legislative plates, his rusting 1982 Dodge Diplomat.

Mr. Maslack, 38, a conservative Republican State Representative, had come to this village, 70 miles north of New York City, to give the keynote address at a three-day event that was expected to attract 4,000 people.

''It's about a classic Republican issue,'' said Mr. Maslack, who is also a slate quarrier from East Poultney, Vt. ''It's all about getting government out of the way so people can go out and make money.''

But nothing around him at the Lembo Lake campground appeared remotely Republican. A rainbow-haired band called the Cheezbutts thrashed through a pounding rock tune. Hemp burgers sizzled on a griddle. A vendor in a tie-dyed T-shirt hawked skull-shaped hashish pipes. And the breeze held the distinct, pungent tang of marijuana smoke.

The issue that the Vermont legislator shared with the crowd around him was legalization of the cultivation of hemp, a low-potency variety of Cannabis sativa, the ancient multipurpose weed that during World War II supplied Allied troops with cord and rope and during the 1960's supplied hippies with altered states of mind.

Mr. Maslack's goal was to pass laws in Vermont that permit the licensing of farmers who seek to grow industrial varieties of hemp that contain no significant concentration of THC, the chemical that causes a high among marijuana smokers. ''Our farmers need all the help they can get,'' he said.

The goal of Robert Robinson, the manager of the annual three-day festival billed as ''Hemp Splash,'' was to promote the legal use of marijuana to get high.

Mr. Maslack is part of an informal network of legislators from nearly a dozen states where farming of industrial hemp has been promoted as a way to improve agriculture and create textile and other jobs. ''It fits Vermont's niche,'' Mr. Maslack said, explaining that hemp is easily cultivated even on rugged slopes. He held up a tuft of fibers next to a bale of raw hemp stalks and told how the material could be turned into linenlike cloth. The plant's high-protein seeds, he added, could be made into everything from soap to the burgers being served nearby.

At the festival, Mr. Maslack set up camp near the booth of the Vermont Hemporium, a company selling hemp necklaces, backpacks, and other gear -- all made from imported fibers instead of home-grown material.

Joseph Shimek, the company's owner, said he smokes marijuana, but was mainly concerned with getting a cheap, local source of the raw material for his goods. ''This is about trying to make a stable business,'' he said. ''Fred's an angel to us.''

He helped Mr. Maslack promote legislation last year that allowed Vermont to study the crop's economic potential. The state's Democratic Governor, Howard Dean, had opposed an earlier version of the law that would have licensed hemp growers.

Mr. Maslack said he had taken on the hemp issue not only because the crop could spur Vermont's agricultural economy, but also because he resented how the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration had increasingly lobbied states to prevent any shift toward legalizing cannabis in any form.

Nancy J. Sheltra, a Republican colleague of Mr. Maslack's from Derby, Vt., said in a phone telephone interview that it surprised her to think of Mr. Maslack speaking to several thousand people at a rock concert. ''Except for this one issue, he has been very conservative in the Republican Party here,'' said Ms. Sheltra, who opposed the hemp licensing legislation.

But Mr. Maslack said he had no qualms about speaking at such a gathering. He said what people do in private is their concern, adding that he was determined to exploit the economic value of hemp as a source of fiber and food.

As Mr. Maslack explained his dream of waving fields of fibrous hemp, those around him in the in the sprawling apple orchard that doubled as a campground remained more focused on marijuana's other uses. Behind a drape of hemp cloth, a man offered passers-by a chance to ''vaporize.''

''It's the safest way to inhale,'' he said, explaining that the marijuana releases its potent vapors when it is heated to just below the temperature at which it burns.

As dusk settled over the orchard, the crickets and cicadas were joined by a chorus of clicking lighters.

Photos: At the Hemp Splash festival in the village of Modena, N.Y., a camper sold hemp belts and necklaces. A goal of the festival is to promote farming of industrial hemp to create textile and other products. Fred A. Maslack, 38, a state Representative from Vermont, advocates changing laws to legalize the cultivation of hemp. (Photographs by Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times)